Forty years ago this month, I was working at a government job in Washington and received a phone call from anxious relatives in the Bay Area asking if World War III was about to begin.

I knew, as they did, that the United States and the Soviet Union were headed for a showdown over Cuba, but I told them it was preposterous to believe that the two great powers would go to war over the island in the Caribbean.

If I had known then what was going on a couple of blocks away in the White House, I would have been more alarmed than they were.

President John F. Kennedy had learned from photos by U-2 reconnaissance planes that the Soviets were secretly installing nuclear missiles on the island, within easy range of Washington and other U.S. cities.

He kept the information secret. His first impulse was that the missiles could not be tolerated and would have to be removed, probably by a quick U.S. air strike on Cuba. Fortunately, he did not act immediately on that impulse but appointed a committee of 15 of his top advisers to meet in secret in the White House Cabinet Room and consider the grim possibilities.

In the course of the talks it became clear that an air strike would kill hundreds of Soviet troops and workers installing the missiles, possibly cause some of the bombs to be launched toward the United States before they could be destroyed and would undoubtedly provoke Soviet retaliation.

The marathon sessions went on for several days (recorded in "The Kennedy Tapes," edited by Ernest R. May and Philip D. Zelikow). The advisers included the hawks, such as the Joint Chiefs of Staff and former Secretary of State Dean Acheson, who called for a quick air strike, and the doves, such as U.N. Ambassador Adlai Stevenson, who argued for negotiations. Other members of the group tried to find a middle course. Defense Secretary Robert McNamara warned that an attack on Cuba could trigger an all-out nuclear war.

Amid hours of hot and heavy discussion of the strategic pros and cons, a vital nonstrategic question was raised. Undersecretary of State George Ball brought up the issue of morality, comparing a surprise attack on Cuba to Pearl Harbor. "It's the kind of conduct that one might expect of the Soviet Union. It is not conduct that one expects of the United States."

Attorney General Robert Kennedy -- the president's brother and closest confidant -- later agreed: "l think George Ball has a hell of a good point. . .

. It's a whole question of . . . what kind of a country we are."

Secretary of State Dean Rusk agreed: "This business of carrying the mark of Cain on your brow for the rest of your life is something. . . ."

The president's brother interjected: "We've fought for 15 years to prevent a first strike against us. . . . Now, in the interest of time, we do that to a small country. I think it's a hell of a burden to carry."

In his 1968 book recalling the crisis, "Thirteen Days," Robert Kennedy admitted that he had opposed Acheson's first-strike view with reluctance; the elder statesman had immense prestige and authority.

"With some trepidation," he wrote, "I argued that whatever validity the military and political arguments were for an attack . . . America's traditions and history would not permit such a course of action. Whatever military reasons he and others could marshal, they were nevertheless, in the last analysis, advocating a surprise attack by a very large nation against a very small one. This, I said, could not be undertaken by the United States if we were to maintain our moral position at home and around the globe. Our struggle against communism throughout the world was far more than physical survival -- it had as its essence our heritage and our ideas, and these we must not destroy.

"I could not accept the idea that the United States would rain bombs on Cuba, killing thousands and thousands of civilians in a surprise attack," he wrote. "We spent more time on this moral question during the first five days than on any other single matter."

For this and other reasons, including the grave risks involved, the final decision was against a quick attack. Instead, with the concurrence of most of the group, the president ordered a naval blockade of Cuba to prevent any further Soviet weapons shipments. Simultaneously, he publicly served notice on Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev to get the nukes out of Cuba or else.

Khrushchev did not respond for several days -- a period of nail-biting tension and backstage negotiations. Finally, the suspense was broken when a Cuba-bound Soviet ship turned back rather than run the blockade.

Rusk remarked: "We were eyeball to eyeball, and the other fellow just blinked."

Khrushchev finally agreed to remove the missiles, ending the crisis.

The close encounter with nuclear war had profoundly shaken both leaders. At Kennedy's initiative, they subsequently agreed on a pact to end atmospheric bomb tests as a step toward nuclear disarmament. They also arranged for expanded cultural exchanges and set up a hot-line telephone link for direct communication in any future crisis.

There are obvious differences between the Cuban crisis and the current Iraq situation. One of them is that in 1962 the White House savants were considering a surprise attack. In 2002, a U.S. strike on Iraq would take no one by surprise. But a central issue has been the same in both crises: Should the U.S. launch a pre-emptive attack on another country to prevent it from attacking us some day?

In more personal terms, if we think the other guy is going to hit us, should we hit him first? The comparison seems banal, since we're probably talking about thousands of lives -- Iraqi and American -- and that deadly possibility brings the moral issue again into focus, as it was in 1962.

Is it morally right to sacrifice thousands of lives on the assumption that a nuclear-armed Saddam Hussein would cause a greater loss of life at some undetermined time in the future?

How much speculation is involved in that assumption? In 1962, JFK rejected the hawks' arguments for a quick strike, even though the nuclear threat to the United States then was far more immediate and urgent that the threat posed by Iraq in 2002. The Cuban nukes were only 300 miles away; Iraq, which as yet has no nuclear weapons and probably could not acquire them in the near future, is 6,000 miles from this continent.

President Bush's determination to attack Iraq in "anticipatory self- defense" contrasts with President Kennedy's efforts to avoid war. JFK made it precisely clear what the Soviets would have to do to avoid a U.S. strike against Cuba -- take out the missiles. He refrained from apocalyptic oratory, avoiding the words "enemy" and "evil."

He made no impossible demands on Khrushchev, no insistence on "regime change" in Moscow. And behind the scenes he offered a special incentive: If the Cuban nukes were removed, he promised eventual removal of U.S. missiles in Turkey aimed at the Soviet Union -- on condition that the deal was off if the Soviets went public with it.

The tough but tactful diplomacy worked. Would a parallel approach work now?

The hawks claim that different circumstances call for a more bellicose response. Anyone's judgment as to whether the hawks are right may depend less on strategic calculations than on temperament -- and on how we evaluate the moral issue: the cost in lives.

Khrushchev realized that a clash over Cuba could lead to a nuclear holocaust that would turn Soviet and American cities into Hiroshimas. If and when Hussein acquires nuclear weapons, would he be similarly deterred, knowing that Iraq's cities would certainly suffer the same fate if he launched them?

As in 1962, speculation is piled on speculation. The hawks choose the speculations that fit their preconceptions; the doves do the same.

The rest of us might well doubt the certainties. Those who insist that we should immediately rally behind the commander in chief should be reminded that previous commanders in chief led us into Vietnam. Those who oppose any action often ignore the threat not only of Hussein's potential possession of nuclear weapons but his presumed chemical and biological capacity as well.

If there is truly a moral dilemma involved, maybe we should not be looking for guidance merely from the generals or the politicians but should also consult ethicists, scholars, historians and moral authorities, both secular and religious. Kennedy and his advisers did not have the privilege of waiting for counsel from such sources; they had to make a quick decision. Whether there is a need for a quick decision now is a judgment call.

During that dark October of 1962, the families of top government officials were offered shelter in secret hideaways outside Washington. Our family, being low on the D.C. totem pole, began to look for a possible air-raid shelter nearby. Our best bet seemed to be an old tunnel under the Chesapeake & Ohio canal. We were close to packing for the tunnel when Khrushchev capitulated and the crisis ended.

Forty years later, no one is headed for the shelters. There is still time for us to ponder all points of view, consider what the U.N. inspectors find, consult our collective moral conscience, and then either affirm or reject our government's choice for war.